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Book Review: Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Summary:

In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them.

Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.

In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life -- not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive.

Review:

I was totally blown away by this book. Simply blown away. It put me into the 'ugly cry,' something very few books are able to do. Sure, I may tear up during moving scenes or feel my throat tighten, but it's rare that a book moves me to outright crying. That's not to say that this is a sad book, it's just extremely powerful.

Unwind is set in futuristic America, an unspecified year, after the Heartland War, which was a second civil war between the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life factions. The Heartland War culminated in The Bill of Life, which outlaws abortion but leaves parents with the option of "unwinding" their children once they reach the age of reason--13 years old. Parents can choose to unwind their problem children at any time between the ages of 13 and 18. Children chosen to be unwound are called "unwinds." Not all unwinds are problem children, though. Some are "tithes"---children conceived for the purpose of unwinding and giving back to the community. These tithes know that their purpose in life is to be unwound and are strangely accepting of their fate.

Unwinding refers to the surgery that dismantles a child, taking them apart piece by piece, 99.44 % of their bodies to be used later as transplants for multiple recipients (the remaining unwanted portions such as an appendix, are discarded). The rationale behind unwinding is that the unwind does not die, but exists in a divided state.

In this new America, there are more surgeons than doctors, and the focus is on transplants, not actually curing diseases. Because who would choose to live with heart failure when you could easily receive a new heart? The same reasoning applies to prosthetic limbs, hair, and even brain segments.

Unwind is told in the third person and the chapters alternate between Connor, Risa, and Lev. Connor is a troublemaker whose parents decided to unwind him. Risa is a ward of the state who gets slated for unwinding due to space limitations in the state home and budget cuts. Lev is a tithe, one of ten children born to parents who always tithe 10% of their earnings, and now, they are tithing 10% of their children. The three unwinds meet and Unwind focuses on their lives after discovering their unwind status.

I'm going to stop my review here, because I don't want to give any part of the story away. I will say; however, that the way Shusterman weaves the interrelating parts of the story together was both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring. Unwind was one of the best books I've read this year; in fact, it's one of my all-time favorites.

Just One Gripe:
There's not one complaint I can make about this book. The only thing I can say is that I see on Goodreads that there will be a sequel: Unwholly, due out in 2012. My one hope is that the sequel matches Unwind in action, emotion, plot, and suspense.

The Best Thing About This Book:
The emotion, the suspense, theway it made me feel: it was all stunning. There are two parts in particular that literally took my breath away. If you've read the book, and want to know what parts those were, leave me a comment and I'll email you privately. I don't want to give anything away.

Appropriate for a younger audience:
Yes, although if I were a parent, I would read this one first before letting my child read it. You need to be able to discuss it with your children.

This story gripped me immediately, and it had been a while since I had reacted so strongly to a book as I did to that one. Parts of it make me feel physically sick they were so ... unimaginable. I think it raises a lot of interesting questions about the value of life and decisions that we make. I agree - I am a little worried about sequels sometimes.